A COSTLY SPANKING.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXX, Issue 5518, 30 December 1929, Page 1

A COSTLY SPANKING.

HARRY THAW TO PAY DAMAGES The limelight of publicity has once again been directed upon Harry Thaw, the man who narrowly escaped death for killing Stamford White, the millionaire architect, in 1909, by an action in which he figured as defendant in New York the other day. Thaw was ordered to pay £15,000 damages to Miss Mae O’Neill, an attractive night club hostess, who was also known as Miss Marcia Estardus. Miss O’Neill alleged that Thaw invited her to a pyjama party at his apartment on January 1, 1927, and then undressed her, bit her, and spanked her with a hairbrush. She declared that she had suffered great mental and physical anguish. Harry Thaw, who is now a greyhaired, middle-aged man, and rather podgy, is just as garrulous and impetuous as in the days of the famous trial. He declared that he was amazed by the action of the New York jury, and that he would appeal. The verdict made it the highestpriced spanking on record. Thaw gasped audibly on hearing the jury’s decision, and was at first speechless with astonishment. Miss O’Neill wept copiously while she described the way in which Thaw showered his attentions upon her during the New Year party which terminated in the hairbrush episode, and she broke into fresh tears when the verdict was announced. “Gentlemen,” she exclaimed to the jury. I am happy because you have restored my name as a pure woman. Now it is good-bye to the cabarets and night clubs of New York. lam going to a country where hairbrushes are only used for brushing hair.” Before Thaw left the court he was served with a summons for £2OOO by Dr. Smith Jelliffe, an eminent New York neurologist, who stated that he was engaged by Thaw in connection with his trial for the murder of Stamford White 21 years ago, and still remained unpaid.